More questions than answers

Will mahagathbandhan work in the ensuing elections in Telangana The TRS and BJP are confident that the experiment will fail but then people cannot be taken for granted What appears to be smooth sailing at this point could turn into rough tides just a week ahead of DDay as the real trend emerges only during the last leg of polls

Will mahagathbandhan work in the ensuing elections in Telangana? The TRS and BJP are confident that the experiment will fail but then people cannot be taken for granted. What appears to be smooth sailing at this point could turn into rough tides just a week ahead of D-Day as the real trend emerges only during the last leg of polls.

The quick moves being made by political parties shows that so far KCR certainly is ahead of all other parties. KCR has been working on his strategies, getting survey reports on performance of candidates and was gearing up for elections in November much ahead of all other opposition parties.

KCR would be using his oratorial skills to lash at the Congress and Telugu Desam and will call Yellow party as Thoka (tail) party and will thunder saying that Andhra party has no place in Telangana. But then Naidu knowing well that this could be a double-edged weapon for him seems to have taken a calculated risk by deciding to go in for joining hands with Congress.

The idea is to put brakes to the speed of the car. If TDP contests separately, it cannot win on its own though it might still have a vote share of about 20 percent. More parties would benefit the TRS as the anti -TRS votes would get split.

Hence Naidu gave green signal for an alliance. Naidu wants to tell the voters in Andhra Pradesh that he has been able to put brakes to the juggernaut of Narendra Modi which he feels will help him in consolidating his position in AP and give him a chance to play key role in national politics post 2019 elections.

While analysts feel that people will not accept this “unholy” alliance since the genesis of TDP was anti-Congress policy, Naidu perhaps feels that there is a strong undercurrent against the BJP at national level and TRS at the state level and hence alliance will help in providing an alternative avenue to the people to vent their anger.

The entire idea seems to be if the Mahagathbandhan can contain the speed of the pink car, it would send a clear message to Modi that all is not well. It will also puncture the bubble of TRS which feels that there is no alternative to the pink party and that it would be one-sided war and pink flags would fly in 100 constituencies.

There is another important angle to this battle of votes. If the elections in Telangana are held in November, ahead of four other states and if TRS comes back to power and if Congress fails to win good number of seats, then it could have some influence in the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram and Modi would go hammer and tongs and say “Telangana mein kya hua, Rahul ka magic gayab hua”. If opposition succeeds to put speed brakes to TRS then the dynamics of politics would see a sweeping change.